*** United States boys clothes : chronology 19th century








United States Boys' Clothes: Chronology--The Mid-19th Century

Information on fashion increases enormously in the mid-19th century. Photography was perfected amd became commercially viable by the 1840s with the Daguerotype. Thius was a photograpgic process invented in France (1839). This was a major development because while still expensive, was much less expensive than a painting. A substantial part of the population could aford a portrait for the first time in history (1840s). Dags provided styling, but not color details. Ambrotypes, tin-types and other processes appeared (1850s) further driving down prices. These were available in Europe, but only substantial numbers of these images were only available in America. Here they were done as cased images that could be carried. Further advances had made photography much less expensive by the 1860s creating ever increasing numbers of images. Ambrotypes (CDVs and acbinet cards) involved negatives. This multiple copies could b made at klow prices. This enable copies to be sent to famoly and friends. Most of the populatioin could now aford a portait of himself or family. As a result, for the first time we have huge numbers of images showing us preciseky how people dressed. The concept of the fashion magazine arrived in America during this period. While circulation was still limited, fashion information was arriving at the American home as never before.

mid-19th century clothing
Figure 1.--This Daguerotype looks to have been taken in the 1850s. The children, pictured with their parents, all wear white dresses. I'm not sure, however, about their gender. At least the youngest child looks to be a boy.

The 1840s

Photography was still very limited in 1840s thus limiting the availability of images to illustrate fashion. Even so, Daguerreotype portrait provude a much larger number of images that artists had ever managed to profuce. We saee a range of hasts, including straw hats and militarry-sdtyled caps. Younger American boys by the 1840s wore dresses. A good example is Thomas Hardwick about 1840. Note his tasseled Tam o'Shanter. School age boys were no longer wearing skeleton suits and tunics were becoming less common. The ruffled collars still seen as late as the 1830s were being replaced by plainer white collars which still could be quite large. The long trousers enspired by the skeleton suit were now commonly worn by boys after breeching. Kneepants were no widely worn even by quite young boysm but were ot yet very common. We see a lot of boys wearing shirts wih long trousers hekd up by suspenders. America was still quite riral and inexpensive ready-,made clotyhes not available. Boys in the city dressed much smarter with jackets. They were more lkikely to wear shoes.

The 1850s

The 1850s is the first decade in which large numbers of photographic images of boys appear. Thus for the first time we have large numbers of very accuate images picturing boys' clothing. American boys by the 1850s were no longer wearing long tunics, although the style had evolved into a kind of tunic jacket which was popular. The tunic-style jackets often had embroidere designs. The collars worn by boys grew increasingly small in the 1850s, in sharp contrast to the collars boys wore in the earlier and latter period of the decade. Boys almost universally wore long trousers, generally quite baggy. Some boys might have pants above the ankles, but this may have been primarily the result of boys outgrowing their clothes and the high cost of replacing them--not a fashion statement.

The 1860s

The 1860s saw the most cataclysmic event in American history, the Civil War. Civil War battles were major bloodlettings with sometimes more fataloties in a sigle day of battle than whole World War II campaigns. In a country with a still fairly small population, few families were spared. HBC has noted that the impact of wars and social uphevals frequently are reflected in fashion. HBC, however has not yet fully determined the impact of the war on boys' fashions. Some fashions were inspired by the war. The most readily observable trend was before the War American boys generally wore long pants after breeching. After the War kneepants begin to become increasingly popular. This does not, however, seem to be an impact of the War as the same trend is observable in Europe. It may be that American fashion trends were not as affected by the War as they were still largely influenced by European fashions.








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Created: 7:48 AM 9/10/2020
Last updated: 7:49 AM 9/10/2020